Cornel West blasts Harvard’s ‘intellectual bankruptcy’ on way out

Renowned black philosopher and activist Cornel West marked his departure from Harvard University by declaring the Ivy League institution to be in a state of “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths”.

Professor West this past March announced his second protest resignation from Harvard within 20 years, and took the opportunity of his official July departure date to blast the university as still harbouring Jim Crow-era practices.

“A serious commitment to veritas,” he said, in reference to Harvard’s motto, “requires resignation – with precious memories but absolutely no regrets.”

The popular 68-year-old professor of African American studies decided to leave after Harvard refused to grant him tenure, and to return to a tenured teaching position at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Professor West posted his departure letter to Twitter nearly two weeks after he wrote it, and in the aftermath of an even higher-profile tenure dispute involving Nikole Hannah-Jones and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In that case, Ms Hannah-Jones spent several months waiting for UNC’s governing board to affirm her tenured appointment amid growing protests on her behalf. After it did, just one day before the job was to begin, she instead took a similar position at Howard University, a leading historically black institution.

The UNC trustees in that case faced political and donor pressure to reject Ms Hannah-Jones after she won the 2020 Pulitzer for Commentary for her work on the 1619 Project, which school districts nationwide use to explain the importance of slavery and black Americans in US history.

At Harvard, a faculty committee recommendation of tenure for Professor West also went unanswered. Professor West said at the time that the refusal may have been related to his outspoken support for Palestinian rights, and he emphasised that issue in a list of complaints in his departure letter.

“We all knew the mendacious reasons given had nothing to do with academic standards,” he said, referencing Harvard’s investments in companies supportive of Israel. “I knew my academic achievements and student teaching meant far less than their political prejudices.”

Harvard’s investments include nearly $200 million (£140 million) in Booking Holdings, a company that the United Nations has linked to Israeli housing settlements in Palestinian territories, according to an analysis published last year by the university’s student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.

Professor West also cited personal reasons for his feelings of alienation from Harvard, including low pay and a lack of condolences from administration officials after his mother died.

He said he returned to Harvard four years ago hopeful of change, only to find “the shadow of Jim Crow was cast in its new glittering form expressed in the language of superficial diversity”.

A Harvard spokesman said the university had no comment on the matter.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com